It used to be that when we saw a bank of brown weeds, it meant an application of pesticide. Now we won’t have to avoid that little patch of death. Not anymore. This new machine kills the weed by applying high-temperature stream directly to the pest.

Christmas trees have come under critical fire for the environmental damage that they can generate - mostly to wildlife habitats through mass tree plantation and the associated use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. After all, you are cutting down a living part of the environment, bringing it into your home, and decorating it for a few weeks before discarding it then repeating the whole process again next year. However, going real is the best way to “go green” this holiday.

Many consumers are increasingly alarmed about issues such as the genetic altering of food or the rising use of pesticides—commercial broccoli is treated with 35 pesticides, for example, and carrots with 22—it’s difficult to find fresh, organically grown produce. That’s because organic farming is a tough, labor-intensive business that struggles to make a profit. Few growers are willing to convert from toxic chemical fertilizers to piles of aged chicken manure or to use boxes of ladybugs instead of insecticides to control pests. And how many will hire workers to sit on their haunches in rows of escarole, painstakingly pulling every weed, instead of quickly dousing everything in herbicide?

Algae is the cheapest, highest yielding feedstock for biofuels and biomass for energy. It accumulates waste toxins, grows from polluting waste, does not require conversion of food crops to energy, does not lead to deforestation, and voraciously consumes carbon dioxide. Algae can produce lipid oils for biodiesel, carbohydrates necessary for ethanol, generate hydrogen, generate methane for electrical generation, be used as fertilizer, animal feed, and co-firing in coal electrical plants. Best of all, the energy produced by algae products is carbon neutral as the algae biomass is produced from CO2 in the atmosphere present today.

Going green is a growing trend in the multimillion-dollar wedding industry, and businesses are cashing in big. Around the world, caterers are offering pesticide-free menus and web sites help newlyweds set up donations to charities that benefit the environment, so guests have an alternative to heavily wrapped presents.